LETTERS: Why is digging up the dead allowed?

FOR centuries archaeologists have been unearthing and opening tombs in Egypt, all in the name of science.

The Egyptians have not stopped the grave robbing.

It is happening all around the world.

Recently, the NewsMail reported that a man, who had been frozen for thousands of years in the mountains, was taken away for examination.

The body had been well preserved so the scientists cut him open to see what he had eaten for his last meal.

What benefit was that? Who really cares?

If anyone dug up a body from one of our cemeteries and disturbed the remains, there would be a public outcry.

It could even be considered a crime.

So, why doesn't the same rule apply to those who have gone years before us?

It has been said that those who opened a tomb would be cursed and die.

Some did, but I think they died from inhaling germs from whatever the person died from.

I have been told we have tissue samples in our laboratories taken from people who died from the plague centuries ago.

This may or may not be true.

I think it is more morbid curiosity than scientific advantage that has this going on.

Let the dead rest in peace.

BETTY LOWIS

Kepnock

Power prices

POLITICIANS claiming they can control power prices are once again taking us for fools.

The fact that members of these same political parties sold off power production and distribution to private corporations simply means we are now subject to the whims and fancies of these corporations, who can, and already do charge what they reckon the market can pay.

The only way for politicians to govern power prices is through re-nationalising the energy production and markets, but that is a forlorn hope with the current crop of fools masquerading as representatives of the people, who never admit they got it wrong.

With the renewables being built and owned by corporations, power prices might go down, but again these operations are owned by corporations whose only motive is making maximum profits, with scant regard for consumers.

MAX TANZER

Elliott Heads

Population woes

IN MY lifetime the Australian population has gone from 6,960,891 when I was born to 25 million now in 2018. That is ridiculous.

That many people in the driest habitable continent in the world in such a short time is looking for big trouble.

Simply put, most of the world's problems can be attributed to overpopulation - that is how many people can a given area of land support and for how long.

Think.

PAUL STERLING

Bargara

Live export

SIXTY years ago it would have been inconceivable that our "civilised" nation would have deliberately sought to have our animals exported to third world countries where they would have their throats brutally sawn open while fully conscious.

It would have been inconceivable that our government would have begged exporters to ship our sheep into the scorching summer months, knowing that many would quite literally roast to death in the ships? But it's happened.

Earlier this month Agriculture Minister Littleproud implored exporters to ship the 45,000 sheep that remain in limbo in Western Australia, to the Middle East.

Given that the current temperatures in Kuwait are in the mid-40s, what torture they would have been enduring.

And those who survived this hell would arrive in time for another kind of hell - the Festival of Sacrifice.

Each year, at this time, footage emerges of Australian animals being subjected to sickening cruelty.

Gandhi famously said "the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated".

Surely it's time our government reversed its shameful downward spiral and demonstrated - by banning this inhumane trade - that we are still a civilised nation.

JENNY MOXHAM

Monbulk

Pollie waffle

I WOKE to the news again this morning and nothing had changed in Australia.

The Liberals/Nationals were badmouthing Labor and Labor responded by badmouthing the Coalition.

The energy wasted by politicians badmouthing each other is nearly enough to do away with coal fires.

It appears to me that the worst kind of government is adversarial democracy where one party tries to out badmouth the other when in fact they both spruik roughly the same rhetorical bulldust.

The saddest part of the whole shameful situation is that about 50 per cent of the intelligent members of parliament are on the wrong side of the chamber and their intelligence, talents and skills are wasted.

Never mind that all who sit in parliament are true and honest Australians with their (and our) country at heart.

Only their philosophies are slightly bifurcated at the extremes.

Isn't it time we utilised all the talent in parliament to make Australia a better place through compromise and rid the country of the political hot air wasted in irrational adversarial altercation.

After all, the root of democratic civilisation boasted no parties. Even our own constitution does not mention political parties, making parties a recent phenomenon no older than 120 years.